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William and his tribe…

We saw last time how William Whitfield, my great-great-grandfather, and at least also his sister Mary (1808-1872), fetched up on the shores of Port Jackson in 1826. Mary married Daniel Sweeney, convict transported on the “Daphne” to Sydney in 1819, and they had three children.

Extract from the marriage record of Daniel Sweeney and Mary Whitfield at St Matthew’s Windsor. 15 January 1827.

What is amazing is there are several there who lived well into my lifetime, though I never met any of them. I did meet several of the next generation though. Bob Starling’s history is titled Jacob Whitfield’s journey from Cootehill County Cavan Northern Ireland to the land down-underand he rightly notes where the tribe went: “Jacob’s wife Mary and four children migrated on the “Thames” in 1826. Mary and two children died on the voyage. William, the only son of Jacob to survive was responsible for the Whitfield name propagating to towns of Picton, Braidwood and the NSW South Coast.” It appears that by 2011 Bob Starling had concluded that Mary (Gowrie) died on the Thames.

Earle left Hobart for Sydney aboard the brig Cyprus, arriving there on 14 May. He soon established a reputation as the colony’s first & foremost artist of significance. Upon setting up a small business, Earle received a number of requests for portraits. These commissions came from a number of Sydney’s establishment figures & leading families. Throughout this time, Earle also continued to produce a number of water colours which mainly fall into three categories : landscapes, Aboriginal subjects, and a series of views of public and private buildings that record the development of the colony. One of his most famous works is a lithographic print entitled Portrait of Bungaree, a native of New South Wales, with Fort Macquarie, Sydney Harbour, in background.

Earle also made several excursions to outlying areas of the colony, travelling north of Sydney via the Hunter River as far as Port Stephens and Port Macquarie and, between April and May 1827, he travelled to the Illawarra district south of Sydney. Gaining acceptance within Sydney ‘society’ he decided to apply for a land grant, this was denied however, due to his lack of capital…

The third picture above is of a skirmish with bushrangers in the Illawarra – that is around Wollongong. In the middle picture the street sign on the right above the basket of fish says “George Street.”

It is late April and a dozen of Australia’s leading Aboriginal artists have gathered inside a former naval cottage at Georges Heights above Sydney Harbour for some brainstorming.

Master of ceremonies is indigenous curator Djon Mundine, his signature dreadlocks trailing the floor. But Mundine has a surprise in store, asking his artists to put down their usual tools and play with some theatrical props – a 19th-century cocked hat and red military jacket. Their mission is to get under the skin of one of colonial Australia’s most enigmatic figures, a Garigal man from Broken Bay who, in circumnavigating the continent with Matthew Flinders in 1802-03, was coined “the first Australian”. His name was Bungaree.

“He was the first north shore person, looking at the people on the south shore, just watching them,” Mundine says. A young man when the First Fleet arrived in 1788, Bungaree was a silent witness to the founding of a colony among the sacred trees and fishing grounds of Tubugowle or Sydney Cove. His curiosity and sense of adventure led him to join the crew of Flinders’s Investigator. A decade later, Governor Macquarie honoured him with farmland at Georges Heights and the title of “Chief of the Broken Bay Tribe”. Greeting ships that arrived in Sydney Harbour wearing his trademark cocked hat and redcoat, Bungaree became the first Aboriginal entrepreneur, immortalised by Augustus Earle’s famous 1826 portrait but shrouded in mystery following his death in 1830…

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